Modification - Charging cable

The experience I carried out on my KIA Spectra served me well over the past 10 years, today, it is replicated here on my Peugeot 407. Unlike the idea of "grounding" the car with several power cables which is in other words means connecting the negative battery terminal to various parts of the engine and body to improve the flow of electricity along the negative route, the idea of "charging" the car with a 2 meter power cable of the same type is to improve the charging of the battery along the positive route by a direct link from the positive terminal of the alternator to the positive battery terminal. After the mechanic completed the connection, I switched on the engine but unlike my KIA Spectra which started with a deeper and more power growl, it was the same hum with the Peugeot engine which gives me the impression that the stock Peugeot 407 charge cable is quite good and also probably, my car is still new. Driving off, I immediately felt a slight noticeable response in the car's performance and I believe the electrical workload is now better distributed to concentrate on the spark plugs. Like my KIA Spectra where battery life of previous 3 batteries were more than 2.5 years each which I attribute to the installation of the charging cable, I expect the same will also occur to the life of my 407's battery. Total investment: RM30 for cable and accessories, labour charge RM30.

Maintenance - 30,000km general service

With this body bracket securely fasten underneath the car and over the plastic engine cover, I was worried how to access the bottom portion of the engine bay for an engine oil or gearbox oil change. Leaving that bracket alone, the mechanic and me came to the conclusion that it was still possible by merely unscrewing the front portion and leave the plastic engine cover ajar. All this did not require any force. Phew! The 30,000km general service merely covered a change of engine oil, new oil filter and a blower job for the air filter element. 

Modification - Mid and Rear Mufflers

Custom Mid Muffler

Custom Rear Muffler

Not much space at the rear to accommodate larger rear muffler

My many years of car modification taught me: modify one component of the car with higher performance parts and it ends up showing weakness of another components because the stock car is factory manufactured compromised to balance performance, handling, comfort and economy. If you want the best of both worlds, you end up paying for a more expensive customized car. I suggest if you have the money, the better choice is its bigger cc engine brother because it was factory researched and factory tuned.

The reality is that I cannot afford such the performance car so ended customizing the car to squeeze out some juicy performance. Earlier on, I had a custom 4-2-1 extractor made, built from scratch because there wasn't one in the local car accessory industry. A second production could shave 20% of the selling price. But as passion crept day by day, I just had to have it .

After 2 days of trial, irritating resonance was clearly heard and felt from 1,500 rpm to 2,500 rpm, and both mid and rear mufflers were customized with tougher stainless steel to cancel out that resonance. Torque noticeably improved by a large margin but the car must be driven to be appreciated. Improve performance is not consistent throughout the power band but gets better, the faster the car is pushed. I am more than please with its mid-range performance which I value most.